PIDGIN: Interrupted Transmission

I am interested in the ‘transnational’ and ‘translational’ as artistic and curatorial strategies that intervene within received narratives of nation, citizenship, identity and community.

PIDGIN grew out of the work of postcolonial writers and practitioners such as Homi Bhabha, Stuart Hall, Gayatri Spivak, Benedict Anderson, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Renee Green, and Coco Fusco, but is original in its technological and linguistic exploration of ‘pidgin’, a hybrid form of communication where different language groups come together and are performed, while having no common language to bind them.

The installation combines sounds, texts, images and icons from a number of places around the world. The slippages between these combinations offer a vision of cultural interaction forged out of difference and local inflection, thereby offsetting the apparently homogenising tendencies of an increasingly globalised economy.

Projected within the gallery space, sequences of images and texts, programmed on DVD, are brought into seemingly random conjunction, creating an interplay of influences and idioms that produce a type of modern vernacular language - a technological ‘pidgin’. Bursts of sound are triggered either interrupting or illuminating these unfolding hybrid forms. Fragmentary, shifting patterns are created giving an impression of language and culture as something in flux, finding points of contact and connection but just as likely, moments of breakage and mutation.

Erika Tan

Erika Tan is a London based artist and curator whose work has evolved from an interest in anthropology and the moving image. Her work is often informed by specific cultural, geographical or physical contexts; exploring different media to create situations that excite, provoke, question, confront and invite comments from an audience. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including EAST International 2000 at Norwich Gallery, included in "Cities on the Move" at The Hayward Gallery, and "Incommunicado" a Hayward Touring exhibition. She has completed a Film & Video Umbrella Commission (PIDGIN: interrupted Transmission), permanent work for East England Arts (Utopic Blurr), and a permanent work for the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail (In Situ). Recent projects include a residency commission with Turner Contemporary, Margate, a BBC Radio London Residency, a video commission with Picture This, Bristol, and an Artists Links Shanghai Residency, China. Erika is also making new work for Singapore’s first International Biennale (2006).

As an extension to her practice, Erika has also jointly curated and project managed art projects in association with Above:Below such as: The ICA in China; Imaginaria Digital Art Prize '99; HUB @The RiCHMiX, an urban regeneration project; Souvenirs, interventionist project in Museum Street, London. Erika has also had a long-standing interest and engagement with the Chinese Arts sector in Britain. Working as a Chinese Arts Worker and freelance research assistant/curator she has contributed to Half the Sky: Chinese Women in London, Museum of London, 1997. In Focus: Film and Video from the Chinese Diaspora: Britain and Another Province, Waterman Art Center, London, 1997. She is currently involved in the development of CAS, an East Asian Art Space within the center of London.

Erika studied Social Anthropology and Archaeology at Kings College, Cambridge; Film Directing at The Beijing Film Academy, followed by an M.A in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins School of Art, London. She is currently undertaking PhD Research within T.R.A.I.N (Transnational Art Identity and Nation), University of the Arts, London. Awards have included: The Arts Council Black Arts Video Award, 1993. Firstbase, ACAVA Studio Award, 1995. Digital Arts Fellowship, The Arts Foundation, 1998. British Council Travel Grant to Japan, Arts Council Connections Fund to Singapore, 99/2000. ACME Live Work Studio Award, London, 2001-2004. Artists Links British Council/Arts Council Residency in China Award.